DVDay is our weekly column that shows new DVD/Blu-Ray releases and if they are worth the purchase.

March 1st, 2011 –

127 Hours — Buy it!

127 Hours was nominated for Best Picture at this year’s academy awards. It also brought in nominations for Best Actor, Best Song, Best Score, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Danny Boyle’s newest is definitely worth the price.

Burlesque — Skip it!

Burlesque came in at a depressing 37% on http://www.rottentomatoes.com. It won Best Original Song at this year’s Golden Globes, but was not nominated for an Oscar under any category.

Faster — Skip it!

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s latest action romp seemed to split both the audience and the critics. Watch it at your own risk!

Love and Other Drugs — Rent it!

Both of our Oscar hosts have DVDs coming out today. Love and Other Drugs is able to successfully bring out some new ideas in the usually stagnant genre of romantic comedy. Yet it isn’t quite fresh enough to spend too much money on.

In an effort to make the blog more thematic, I’ve changed the layout once again. I did this because I came across an amazing photo that I had to have. I wanted to use the photo in it’s original format, but unfortunately, I don’t have the web design skills to know how to do that.

The image was photographed by Tom Magliery. He was also kind enough to let us use that picture for the blog. After you’ve realized how wonderful the picture is, please visit Tom’s Flickr page and check out the rest of his wonderful photographs at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mag3737/

>Blue Valentine is a fragmented story of a fragmented marriage. As the writer and director, Derek Cianfrance is the artist of this dismal and unapologetic depiction of a marriage that’s lost it’s love. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams play Dean and Cindy, two young lovers whose marriage has dissolved to a loveless schedule. They do what they are supposed to do as a couple, but there is no love.

Plot: Told from two different times, the beginning and end of their relationship, Blue Valentine shows what could be interpreted as the disease of love. The film breaks up the plot into two separate times, the past and present. It’s occasionally hard to follow when the plot cuts through different times. The actors underwent major transformations to portray the two different times, but the darkness of the film made that hard to notice at first. This plot structure deals in dichotomies: a young, unstoppable love and a dead, withering marriage. This style also lends itself to a critical viewing of the early times. I found myself looking for personality quirks or pet peeves that could lead this marriage to the fate we see on the other side, but there seems to be nothing that alludes to the unfortunate outcome. The absence of the middle, or the act II of their marriage, is missing, but let’s explore that in the story section.

Story: What could have happened to cause these two people to fall out of love? When showing their courtship, the couple seems fearless in their love. Dean pursues Cindy and finally manages to talk her into a goofy night on the town in which the couple behave like two giddy lovers, dancing and playing the ukulele in the streets. The scenes of their courting are reminiscent of other films’ portrayal of a couple destined to be together forever. Flash forward to the present time, and we find that not to be the case. The fact that the film doesn’t show you the middle of their relationship is a unique choice. As a viewer, you find yourself wanting to see that section, to comb through and discover catalyst of this deterioration of love. I believe that Derek left this section out on purpose, that in the story of these character’s lives, there was no single event or action that caused their relationship to fall from grace. I would imagine that the real people that this sort of event happens to do the same thing, they look back on their relationship to find out what went wrong. I’m sure they have as much trouble finding a cause than we did in the theater.

Characters: As I just stated, judging just by the courtship scenes, we feel like we’re watching a couple whose love is infallible, but we know more about their lives than this, at least that’s true about Cindy. Cindy, it seems, doesn’t know what love is. Her father is a violent and abusive husband to her mother. She resigns herself to ask her grandmother what it feels like to fall in love, but it seems as though grandmother experienced the same plight that Cindy will. Dean is given less of a back story, but one that seems similar to Cindy’s. We find out that his mother and father split up when he was young, and that he no longer has contact with his mother. That loss of a maternal relationship has to have a negative effect on a child. Knowing this, we can see through this young love to find an splinter of doubt that will lead these star-crossed lovers to their eventual declination. In the present tense, there’s an interesting display of their relationships. Dean lives his life for his family. His job is not so much the thing he goes to as much as the thing he comes home from. His life is with his family and he aims to make his wife and daughter happy. He fails miserably at the latter. The only time Dean ever displays any passion is when it comes to Cindy. Cindy never offers us an insight into why she’s so unhappy. You’d think that living with someone whose only goal is to make you happy would be a gift, but it would appear not. She asks him during a drunken foray into a cheesy, futuristic sex motel why he doesn’t pursue the things he’s good at. She essentially asks him why he’s content with the way they are right now. She phrases the question in terms of what would be best for him, but there are definitely undertones in her question. Could she be asking him to chase his skills as a musician to enhance their lives or to get him to leave her? There’s also the possibility that she’s so depressed that she’s asking how can he be content with living with someone like her.

Themes, Motifs, & Symbols: Love, or rather the absence of love, is the major theme here. The absence of love in the marriages of the character’s lives is the foreshadowing that explains what could have happened to these characters who were once so in love. In the opening scene of the film, we find out that Cindy forgot to lock the gate to their dog’s pen who has escaped. This results in the dog’s death. This event plays as both a precipitating event as well as a symbol for this family. I believe it provides a metaphor for them to realize that their love is dead. The final image of the film was strikingly oblique and was one that I’m continuing to think about even now. The film ends with Dean walking away from his wife and daughter after she asks for a divorce, and in the background, children are shooting off fireworks. Fireworks, obviously are usually reserved for celebrations, and as we know, nothing on screen is an accident. It makes me wonder what CianfranceCianfrance is trying to say.

Well, it’s Oscar weekend. You know what that means! Grabbing the biggest drink you can find, ordering a pizza, and settling in with an excitement that tapers off by the third hour when your ass starts to hurt from sitting for so long. Here, I will present whom I expect to win for this year’s Oscars. I’ve not seen every film that’s up for an award, so where I’m lacking in personal experiences (almost all of the shorts), I’ve made up for in research.

Who will win and who should win aren’t always the same. So, if necessary, I will list beside who I think should win.

Best Picture

– True Grit– The Social Network– Black Swan– 127 Hours– The Fighter– The King’s Speech– The Kids Are All Right– Toy Story 3– Winter’s Bone– Inception

Who Will Win: The King’s SpeechWho Should Win: The Social Network

Although I believe that The King’s Speech was a wonderful movie, I believe that, in time, it will fall by the wayside as The Social Network continues to define the era in which it was made.

Actually, I think Christian Bale should win too, but I wanted to talk about Geoffrey Rush. I wouldn’t be upset if he won, his character was great in The King’s Speech. But he’s going up against fan-favorite Christian Bale who always gives 110% to his roles.

Who Will Win: The King’s SpeechWho Should Win: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Period pieces often win this category, but I think that Harry Potter did a wonderful job in the art department of staging a magical world in reality and making it look like it actually exists. I am highly biased though.

Period pieces ALWAYS win this category. If one of those pieces is Best Picture, consider it a shoe-in. I used to hate that they always won until I talked to a costume designer about the intricacies that go into accurate costumes. I am no longer bored by costume design.

I’ve only seen two of these features: Exit Through the Gift Shop and Restrepo. The votes seem to be tied between Exit Through the Gift Shop and Inside Job. It basically boils down to popularity against content. Even though I wasn’t that big of a fan of Exit Through the Gift, I think it will pull ahead due to popularity and the fact that everyone wants to see if Banksy shows up to accept.

I didn’t see any of the entries in this category, so I don’t actually know who should win. Before I did my research, I picked Killing in the Name simply based off its title. It seems the internet agrees.

Film Editing

– 127 Hours– The Fighter– The Social Network– The King’s Speech– Black Swan

Who Will Win: The Social NetworkWho Should Win: The Social Network

This category is kind of a toss up. Based on unique editing styles, I’d say 127 Hours would win, but in straight story-telling editing, The Social Network will pull it in. Editing is a process I’ve not learned much about, so accept my pick in the category at your own risk.

Foreign Language Film

– Biutiful– Dogtooth– In A Better World– Incendies– Outside the Law

Who Will Win: In A Better WorldWho Should Win: N/A

Again, I didn’t get to see any of these, so take this recommendation with a grain of salt. The interweb seems to agree on In A Better World to win the category.

Makeup

– Barney’s Version– Wolfman– The Way Back

Who Will Win: The WolfmanWho Should Win: Barney’s Version

I only think Barney’s Version should win because it’s the only other one that I’ve seen besides Wolfman, and I don’t want Wolfman to be able to say it won an Oscar. It was not good.

Music (Original Score)

– How to Train Your Dragon– Inception– The King’s Speech– 127 Hours– The Social Network

Who Will Win: The Social NetworkWho Should Win: The Social Network

It won a Golden Globe, so I think it has the best chance to win the Oscar as well. Oh, also, it was good.

Who Will Win: InceptionWho Should Win: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Again I say, Harry Potter’s visuals make it an accessible fantasy film. Strange category though. Alice in Wonderland was dumb. Could you see any effects through all of the Dr. Pepper ads in Iron Man 2? And did anyone actually see Hereafter?

Aaron Sorkin is one of our best writers. Combined with a film the quality of The Social Network and we’ve got a winner.

Writing (Original Screenplay)

– Another Year– The Fighter– Inception– The Kids Are All Right– The King’s Speech

Who Will Win: The King’s SpeechWho Should Win: The King’s Speech

Read about the creation of the story of The King’s Speech. It’s really interesting. Inception, was an interesting story, but it was too full of plot holes and inconsistencies to take home the trophy, I believe.

So there are your picks. I hope you enjoy the Oscars this year. Maybe Anne Hathaway and James Franco will breathe a breath of fresh air into the traditionally boring ceremony.

>When the category for “Best Animated Feature” began at the Academy Awards in 2001, DreamWorks Animation took home the prize with the help of Shrek. With the exception of one other win for Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, DreamWorks has come up short to Disney/Pixar almost every year. When Kung-Fu Panda was up against Wall-E in 2008, Jack Black said it best when he said, “Each year I do one DreamWorks project then take all the money to the Oscars and bet it on Pixar!”

Don’t misunderstand my post as anti-Pixar in the slightest. Though I loved Kung-Fu Panda, it didn’t stand a chance against Wall-E. And generally, Pixar is more infallible that DreamWorks as evidenced by Monsters vs. Aliens which I consider their worst since Over The Hedge. No, this article is geared more towards this upcoming Oscars’ category specifically.

It seems the general consensus is that Toy Story 3 is a shoe-in for the win this year. It’s easy to see why. Toy Story was Pixar’s first film, and Toy Story 3 has been the highest grossing film for them yet, earning over $1 billion; more than twice as much as How To Train Your Dragon.

My base argument here is that, although Toy Story 3 was a “good” movie, I don’t believe that it really added anything new to the series. It was merely the same characters on a new adventure. I’m not against sequels, but although the overall time sequence is furthered, the general plot of the movie is not much different from the other two predecessors. Toys that come to life get separated from their owner and must make their way back while dealing with their own personality quirks.

How to Train Your Dragon presented with a new and well-thought-out idea. They created a world in which dragons are a nuisance and feel like a real part of that world. Adding interesting characters that were very well voiced by unique actors upped the plot to a fun and inspiring adventure. I’m always interested when a person can create a new universe of plausibility through details. How to Train Your Dragon has many plot elements such as: dragons vs. humans, familial and communal acceptance, misunderstandings, as well as your token love-story.

This film was also the only one of the past year in which I felt like I didn’t waste money for a 3D ticket. I thought the application of 3D in this film was used to perfection. There weren’t any silly, gimmicky shots. The most memorable scene was one in which the 3D did exactly what it was supposed to do, enhance the scene without drawing attention to itself. In the scene, Hiccup and Toothless have finally perfected their symbiotic flying method and are experimenting by soaring through the clouds. This film single-handedly changed my opinion on the necessity of 3D. I’d all but given up on the effect.

I have a feeling that familiarity and money will put Toy Story 3 at the top, but I hold out hope that a sweet, sleek and unique film might bring home the gold.

Last April, I finished 90 days of P90X, quite possibly one of the most difficult 90 days of my life. For those of you not familiar with the program, it’s 13 weeks, 6 workouts a week. The workouts themselves range from resistance training to yoga. But for 13 weeks, there is no rest. I mention this here, because it has become clear to me that writing has to be the same. For those periods when you are writing, it needs to be relentless. That’s what leads me here. When things became difficult during my workouts, I leaned on my workout partner for support. But more importantly, I leaned on my partner to push me on those days when I just didn’t think I could do it. My friend The Doctor and I have talked writing projects for awhile now, and both of us are guilty of periods of consistent work, strung between periods of complete inactivity. So I thought perhaps we could push each other. Things always take on a different urgency when someone is counting on you.

So let’s do this. No screenplays this time around, let’s write some prose. I’ll start, 300 words or so and then it’s The Doctor’s turn. Let the story go where it will. The goal is to write every other day, but if we miss a day here and there so be it. The main thing is that we’re writing and the story is moving along. So that’s the task, now get to it.

Here you go…….

I was thirty-seven when I lost my mind.I guess I shouldn’t really say that I lost it .It was still there.I should probably say that I just stopped listening to it.I ate, slept, fucked, and went to the gym just like I always had. But as I sat at my desk on that cold snowy Virginia afternoon in January, it became clear to me that my mind was on a permanent vacation.I looked out the window on the 10th of January 2011 at the colorless sky, and the mounds of snow where the shrubs used to be, and I just knew that I would never be happy there again.So I did what any respectable man in his mid-thirties would do.I quit my job and moved to Key West.

The warm Gulf breezes skipped softly across my face as I stepped off the plane.In the distance there were palm trees swaying quietly, and a flower that I had never seen before bloomed right outside the terminal entrance.It was 26 degrees when I left Virginia that morning and there I stood with both feet firmly planted on the island for the first time. It was 76 degrees and the wind tossed my suddenly too long hair to one side.I had only brought one bag with me from the mainland.I figured if my move stuck, I could always go back and get the rest of my things at a later date.Beyond that, I hadn’t given the actually being there much thought.Getting out was the part I planned, I didn’t really do much thinking about the getting in.

>I immediately failed on my new column already, but that’s ok, because I was going to change the format anyways. I’ve already written my review on Toy Story 3, and I didn’t get any questions about it, so what we can do now is this. This week’s movie of the week is “Predators” starring Adrien Brody and produced by Robert Rodriguez. It doesn’t come out until Friday, but I will see it this weekend and have a new post for you on Sunday. E-mail or comment me some questions you have about the film and I’ll answer them on Sunday. Until then, keep it reel!

>I just thought of a new article I could start. On Sundays, I’m going to name a movie of the week. Throughout the week, I’ll try and relate other articles to the movie, you can write in with some questions you have about any aspect of the movie and on the following Sunday, I’ll list a new movie and write a post about the previous one. I’ll go ahead and give you some background on this week’s movie.

Toy Story 3 was released last weekend to box office and critical acclaim. To date, Toy Story 3 has made around 270 million dollars worldwide.

I finally got to see if yesterday and I really liked it a lot. Pixar can do no wrong in my book. I’m going to be flabbergasted when one of their movies flops. If ever it should happen.

I noticed an intriguing incident while I saw it. When that Disney intro hit and that familiar music played over the revelation of the castle, I got this feeling over me that was just in utter anticipation of the movie I’m about to see. Through some Pavlovian response, that short measure that indicates the Disney emblem just enchants me. The graphics from the Disney logo have changed over time obviously, but to my knowledge, not much has changed in the music that accompanies it. Now sure I feel a bit weird about getting insanely excited over a Disney movie as a 25 year old man, but I think that’s a testament to the power of movies. Disney has put their name on several great pieces of work over the past 87 years. This stimulus/response action that I experienced could have just come from the Lion King alone. I must have seen that movie 40-50 times; at least 5 in theaters.

Now, specifically about Toy Story 3. I thought it was really very good. I will admit that I’ve never seen Toy Story 2, so I believe I was missing out on some of the references from Buzz and Jessie. The rest of the plot was an endearing and heartfelt story that seemed relevant and natural to the Toy Story canon. The voice acting was superb as well; most notably from Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. Ned Beatty did a wonderful job as the maybe not-so-good Lotso. Throw in a bit of Joan Cusak, Michael Keaton and Whoopi Goldberg and you’ve really got something to work with.

The story was just a bit on the predictable side, but you can’t really expect children to be entertained and understand what’s going on when the movie is in the form of “Memento” or something. The movie seemed, to me at least, to be a closure to the series, but I guess there could be a way to bring about another sequel if they really wanted to.

In summation, I’m going to have to give Toy Story a GAF score of 98, which I believe is it’s current standing on Rotten Tomatoes. So if you haven’t seen it, then make some plans for the theater, so that we can discuss it further in a week! Until then, keep it reel.